


Leave My Body

by GirlDressedInBlack



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-13 02:09:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28770618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GirlDressedInBlack/pseuds/GirlDressedInBlack
Summary: The Mistress and the Doctor talk before she goes to face her younger self and grieve for what they didn't have.
Kudos: 6





	Leave My Body

The air is cold, damp, as she pulls it in through her lips, into her lungs.

"I don't care if I'm going to live or die." She admits, watching her breath condense as she breathes out.

The space between the trees is flooded with the low-lying mist. The distance between them feels almost as thick as they stand apart, unsure how to relate to each other now.

"Missy," he pleads, not knowing what he is begging for really or who.

The Mistress turns to face him, eyes fixed on him.

He is pale now, though she supposes he has been for a long time, and his eyes are a cold and equally pale blue.

Being old suits him somehow, in ways that she can't describe.

It's strange to look at him and see all at once her enemy, her best friend, her lab partner, her crush, her prey, her foil, hats and scarves and coats and sweaters and hair.

He's changed as much as she has, in his own small ways.

She looks away from him, his coat, fraying at the edges, and messed up hair, and thinks for a second, eyes on the shifting fog, that maybe he's as close as she is to what comes next, unravelling like their stories are for these bodies.

There's sadness there, about losing this self, she's enjoyed being Missy, the Mistress, and the things that she has learned and changed about herself this time around.

She wonders if she'll think to keep them if she's granted another turn on the wheel, what she will lose and what she will gain.

"It's okay," she says finally, "Death is for other people, you know? You'll see me again, I'm sure, with different eyes." There is something about the words which feels like a goodbye though there are hours, at the very least, between now and them parting for what she must do.

His breathing is ragged and his voice pitches up, breaking as he speaks. "You were my best friend once. What happened?"

The Mistress smiles, fond and sad at the same time.

"What happens to everyone in the end I suppose, regardless of species or lifespan. We grew apart, my dear Doctor, in the most complicated of ways," Her voice is soft as she looks at him again.

His face is bitter, twisted, childlike somehow, screaming that it's unfair.

"But why can't we have it again?" he asks, "You wanted it so badly before."

Missy takes his hand in hers, weathered as much as hers but fitting in a way which is warming into her grasp, "I know. It wasn't the right time then. It's funny how it's only the right time when it's too late," she muses, smiling again as she squeezes his hand, "I hope that next time we can be friends again."

The Doctor smiles slightly at that, bitterness and frustration in it.

"I hope so too," he says, voice quiet with impending grief.

The Time Lady pulls him closer, holds him for the moment he allows it, and presses a kiss into his hair.

"Well," she says, "see you next time around."

He holds her back tightly for a second longer, fingers buried in her clothes, and she can hear the way that his breath catches on the tears that he is trying to stop from falling.

"See you next time," he whispers, face buried in her shoulder as he breathes in the smell of her, the possibilities that could have been.

And then.

The Mistress goes to him, her younger self, and leaves her body on the ground.


End file.
